Faith Working Through Love in Senegal

Mt Rachel Baptist church in Dalton, Georgia has maybe 450 people in attendance any given Sunday. They have fallen in love with three villages in Senegal outside of Kaffrine among the Fulbe people. Mt Rachel came to know about these folks through their former pastor Tom Smith after he became a missionary with the IMB (International Missions Board of the Southern Baptists). Tom took current pastor Marty Greene to Kaffrine on a vision trip in 2007 and they visited some villages which have had only minimal contact with Christians. Senegal is a country that is 95% Muslim and many of the rural areas have no exposure to God's Word.

Twice a year Brother Marty takes teams there and they're shooting for four to five times a year. These teams do seventeen weeks of preparation for the trips, 1.5 hours/week on Sundays. They read "All The Prophets Have Spoken" and do language work so that they can greet and visit when they arrive. They do Bible study to learn stories to share (for the June trip they are studying John). For some team members, this is the first time they have studied the Bible intensely, for a reason. Most everyone who's gone on the trips, when asked why they want to go reply, "Because I want a new experience with Christ." That's what they've heard from others who have gone. They complete a 6 week training on missions from the IMB and do some training on safe travel solutions in dealing with unfriendly government officials. They were detained one year and found they needed that training. They run background checks on team members, those typical for people who work with children. This was suggested by the IMB after some field experiences the IMB had with other short term teams. Teams average about nine people.

When Brother Marty was on his vision trip with Tom, as he prayed about what to do, he felt led of God to use a strategy where they do not bring material gifts or projects. "We don't want them coming to us hoping to get something tangible." Brother Marty says, "This doesn't mean other strategies are invalid. This is just what God led us to do." They did do one project with a dental hygienist and donation of toothbrushes, and another project where they gave seeds and some soccer balls, but in the case of the seeds they gave based on the receivers agreeing to give seed back into a seed bank at harvest.

In place of major projects, Mt Rachel's teams visit with people and ask them for prayer requests. They come back to Georgia, give the prayer requests to their whole church when they come back and pray. When they return six months later, they go back and find out how God has answered. On one early trip they heard, "We need water." They replied, "We're just men, there's really nothing we can do about that, but we will pray to our God." Within a year the town had water. The team from Mt Rachel sits down with people and listens to their stories, tell their own testimonies, and pray for people in person. They tell Bible stories. The villagers love to share stories with them. During their last trip they worked in fields of the village pulling weeds.

Mt Rachel has found that this work in Senegal has had a big impact on their church as they have seen their own prayers answered. In Senegal, it's common to receive a new name from your friends in a village. Folks at Mt Rachel greet each other with those names on Sunday. Brother Marty has become accustomed to an occasional cry of "Alhamdoulilaye!" in the midst of the more common "Amen" and "Halleluyah" during his sermons. Many team members have launched into outreach in their local community on return to America. Missions abroad, outreach at home - think globally, act locally. They are struck by the issue of lostness and have launched VBS programs in the schools out in their community. The short term trips have been spiritually challenging and most have grown in response to the challenge. Mt Rachel just erupted when Bass Ba and Kanta Soh got saved. Persecuted believer Mayacine has really had an impact on the people from Mt Rachel.

Mt Rachel's goal is to encourage nationals who have accepted Christ to reach their own countrymen, and they are helping one young Senegal man now who is using literacy training in the villages to teach the Bible.


After one of their trips, the local marabout (spiritual leader in folk Islam) came and told the village not to let Mt Rachel come back.



The townspeople refused the marabout.






by Rick Randall, Broomfield, Colorado